Free Essay on Organizational Analysis of Mayo Clinic

Introduction

Organizations are systems designed to fulfill certain goals through people-to-people and people-to-work relationships. They are critical social entities in various ways as they allow a gathering of people with different skills and expertise to come together and discuss and create ideas that can help improve society as a whole. Essentially, each organization is often influenced by its own internal and external environments, which, in extension, determine the nature of the relationships according to its specific needs. By definition, according to Cooper and Burrell (2015), organizational analysis is a diagnostic process that gives an adequate understanding of the performance of an organization. It can help leaders and managers obtain deeper knowledge about the sources of organizational weaknesses and failures and to identify the best practices through emerging opportunities. Over the course of their lives, different organizations encounter various crises, either internally or externally. For instance, mature organizations can become too rigid, lacking ideas, energy, and capacities to renew themselves and to adapt to new environments. For this reason, organizational analysis is critical since it enables leaders and manager to assess the internal weaknesses and strengths as well as the external challenges and opportunities as portrayed through the analysis of Mayo Clinic.

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Healthcare Organizations as Complex Adaptive Systems

Complex adaptive systems are viewed and present everywhere. They can be found in stock markets, in governments, in human bodies and organs and even in hospitals. In many instances, it is not surprising when one studying or working in a healthcare organization refer to such organizations as a system. This is mainly because of the enormous complexity of the healthcare organizations in the 21st century; both by their consolidated and integrated designs and also by their dynamic, nonlinear, and random nature (Sittig & Singh, 2015). Indeed, as opposed to the mechanical systems that were often used in traditional healthcare organizations, to produce a predictable output, the modern healthcare systems are more complex due to the nonlinear interaction of its components, therefore, results in unforeseeable outcomes. According to Akgun, Keskin, and Byrne (2014), just like in the complex adaptive systems, the components of the modern healthcare systems are independent agents. These agents may include clinics, hospitals, rehabilitation units, patient homes, and nursing homes. They often interact nonlinearly on different scales and act based on surrounding or local knowledge and conditions; therefore are rarely influenced by a central body.

Transformation of complex systems is quite challenging compared to the traditional mechanical systems in which output can be controlled by manipulating each of its agents. In complex systems, the outcomes become more unpredictable, the more regulations are devised to influence the behavior of the systems' components. In particular, the transformation of complex systems is overall challenging because they are characterized by their dynamic states (Sittig & Singh, 2015). These systems have a large number of agents which are highly interconnected, and when combined with external forces creates a discontinuous change. Similarly, the relationships in complex systems are massively entangled and involve numerous components being influenced by a large number of interdepended forces. Additionally, complex systems are usually sensitive to minor changes, especially during the inception period.

The Organization

Mayo Clinic is a healthcare institution, and a nonprofit organization majorly focused on education, research, and clinical practice. It is one of the largest and leading nonprofit academic healthcare systems in the United States with dozens of outlets in various states. The healthcare organization also has three major campuses in Jacksonville, Florida; Scottsdale, Arizona; and Rochester, Minnesota. The organization's mission is to inspire hope and contribute to health and well-being by providing the best care to every patient through integrated clinical practice, education, and research (Olsen & Dacy, 2014). In terms of values, Mayo Clinic embraces the vision and intent of its founders, the Sisters of Saint Francis and its first physicians. These values include integrity, compassion, respect, teamwork, innovation, and stewardship. It has a philosophy of shared decision making and stresses that the union of forces is necessary so that patients can have the benefit of advancing knowledge. Mayo Clinic is governed by the Board of Trustees, which oversees the daily operation of the organization with the main goals of providing the best quality care for patients.

Since its inception, Mayo Clinic continues to live by the expression of the vision and the intentions of its founders through its mission and values. For instance, through its mission statement, the organization continues to deliver and inspire what it has stood for throughout its history. Although it has expanded to include education and research, the patients' well-being continues to be the primary focus of Mayo Clinic. Its value "the need of the patients come first," has been instrumental over the years and remains one of the reasons the organization is regarded as the number one healthcare provider not only in the United States but also Globally. Even more, in terms of an employer, Mayo clinic is considered as one of the biggest employers in the United States' private sector, operating in five different states with more than 63,000 regular employees.

The Culture of Mayo Clinic

Schein's Model of Organizational Culture is one of the methods often used to examine the concept of culture in an organization and how it affects them. According to Mate and Rakover (2019), Edgar Schein views culture as a product of joint learning and argues that culture is a pattern shared conclusions and assumptions learned by different people who have a common goal of solving problems of external adaptation and internal integration. Schein also believes that the culture of an organization has a huge influence on the performances of the employees and how they feel about the organization. The success at Mayo Clinic has often been driven by its unique culture that involves not only team-based medicine but also team-based management and governance. Every employee at the organization understands its primary value that the needs of the patients come first. With this in mind, all the employees have come together to share knowledge and to mainly focus on patients away from any form of distractions. What reinforces the organization's culture, even more, is the fact that the entire institution is run by physicians who still practice medicine. Unlike many organizations, Mayo Clinic's employees have the tradition and the norm of living by its mission statements and core values, which enables them to attend more to clients without distractions.

The organization's climate at Mayo Clinic is very supportive and caring. The management values its staff and usually treats them the same way the clinic treats its patients. In particular, when decisions are made at Mayo Clinic, the inputs of the employees are highly regarded. The hospital tends to inquire what matters to its staff then work with them in a co-production, co-design, and shared decision-making process, integrating their ideas so that they feel supported and satisfied with their work environment. With this strategy, employees always remain motivated, engaged, and energized.

Just like people, organizations also need to learn to be able to adapt and evolve. A smart organization can easily adapt to changing conditions and sometimes can lead change by indicating the best way forward. For a complex organization like Mayo Clinic, all the people involved with it need to learn to transform. It supports education and cutting edge research both for its medical professionals who are continuously engaged in clinical activities and also for its patients as a way of supporting exclusive patient-centered care (Olsen & Dacy, 2014). For example, even now, Mayo continues to support educative programs and build new strategies that facilitate innovation.

Leadership Style at Mayo Clinic

Currently, healthcare leaders are faced with significant challenges when it comes to patient care delivery and managing the workforce effectively. Being a complex adaptive system, the skills and the competencies required in healthcare organizations for physicians to be effective leaders are outstanding and continue to evolve. As a matter of fact, the leadership challenges in healthcare organizations have recently highlighted the need for better leadership development programs to train competent and adaptive leaders. At Mayo Clinic, the predominant leadership style is democratic because it involves interactions and exchange of information. According to Nanjundeswaraswamy and Swamy (2014), under the democratic leadership style, leaders are more participative in nature and prefer including their subordinate team members in critical decision making. This type of leadership requires highly intelligent, competent, and creative leaders and usually effective, especially if the team members are both skilled and experienced. For example, as part of a democratic leadership style, in 2015, Mayo Clinic embarked on action learning type of leadership in which leaders involve small groups in various projects in which a balance of action and learning is key (Swensen, Kabcenell, & Shanafelt, 2016).

Polarity Thinking

Nowadays, one of the critical competencies required in healthcare and for one to become an effective leader in healthcare organizations is problem-solving. However, some of the most haunting challenges facing leaders and physicians in healthcare organizations are not problems but polarities that need management rather than solving. Indeed, polarities are different from problems that can be fixed overnight; they are recurring and therefore, can only be managed. According to Wesorick and Shaha (2015), polarities are a pair of interdependent and mutually crucial values that are an unavoidable part of life and must always remain balanced. This means that if one side of the pole of polarity is emphasized more than the other, the problems may arise in the entire organization. At Mayo Clinic, leaders strive to maintain equity between administrative board expectations, patients' expectations as well as the staff expectations in vain. For example, when the clinic' leaders try to improve the level of satisfaction for the patients, staff members start to question the validity of the decision. In particular, sometimes the leadership at the clinic are frustrated with their clinicians' inability to meet the needs of their patients while on the other hand, the staff keeps questioning the ever-increasing expectations from the administration. In this case, it is always important to understand the polarities and how to leverage them.

Collins' Research Finding and Conclusions

Overall, effective leaders usually have a specific blend of skills. These individuals understand what it takes to achieve greatness in their organizations. In fact, they possess certain unique characteristics which are sometimes hard to explain. According to Driver and Wachter (2012), Collins and his colleagues attempted to explore the thin line that distinguishes good companies from great ones using an empirical approach. Their findings came as a shock to him and to the team involved because they contrasted many of the commonly held views about factors contributing to success. These findings still apply to modern complex organizations.